a fool's musings

Fool, said my muse to me, look in thy heart and write...

Warning: Adult Content achromatic unfinished fic graveyard recs journal new stuff recent stuff my back pages January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 February 2002 January 2002 December 2001 November 2001 the five Ws, or, all about me profile e-mail victoria my livejournal the original P&R comments current mood: "pathological and unbalanced" Items of Interest People LiveJournal folks Baraita bishclone claritylit Jintian Kat Allison Kit Mason metablog mix-tapes Neil Gaiman Nestra Sarah T. Seema Shrift Sundry Mourning zendom Music Walk On - U2 Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen If I Can't Change Your Mind - Sugar Sick of Myself - Matthew Sweet Town Called Malice - The Jam One - U2 The Space Between - DMB Books Lord of the Rings Catch-22 The Neely Trilogy Absalom! Absalom! Possession: A Romance Foucault's Pendulum Dreamhouse LA Confidential I Capture the Castle Sandman Waking the Moon Shows Angel Buffy the Vampire Slayer (in reruns) Alias West Wing The Simpsons webrings < ? fanfiction ! > < ? writers ! > diaryreviews.diaryland.com NYC Bloggers Comments by Haloscan.com all links, if I haven't screwed up somehow, should open in a new browser window

2002-03-01 - 1:37 a.m. addicted to icons Gah! I need to go to bed. Why am I still up? One word... Icons. I'm addicted to making little icons for LJ that I'm probably not even going to bother to use. I'm not artistic in any way, shape or form, but this I can manage to do. Maybe I'll upload them onto my website at some point, so you can see all the lurvely ones I've made. Sigh. I've got to get over my Rogue thing. They're almost all of her. ~victoria [current mood: ] [current music: ] [random quote: ] ~*~ 2002-02-28 - 4:30 p.m. psst... she's in a really bad mood I'm in a really foul mood; people fucking irritate me. I'm doing all this work for this stupid bint, and she's like, "He didn't get the report last month. Did you mail it?" No, bitch, I took it home and hung it on my wall. *Of course* I fucking mailed it. Grrr... ::deep breath:: I have a style peeve... When did we lose the subjects of our sentences? For one or two sentences it's all right. A whole story like that? So not interested in reading it. Just like the second person discussion on zendom. I don't think it's a good POV *at all*. The surest way to get me to delete your story, after misspelling the lead character's name or something in the headers, is when I see that telltale "You" in the narrative. Shoot me now. I don't want to read it. it's gimmicky and false and dear god, combined with the present tense it makes me want to throw things. I can think of three stories altogether that worked for me in second person. Mexico by Molly Laundry Day by Cygnet [and only because it's a "You have sex with Logan" story] La Donna é Mobile by someone in West Wing fandom Possibly another one by Molly, or maybe it was Jengrrrl, but I'm blanking on it right now. That's it. Otherwise, second person reads too much like those damn "Choose Your Own Adventure" books I read as a kid, which never had the really interesting choices, anyway [to get back to what I was bitching about this morning]. I haven't yet posted about this on zendom, but I will, once my ire at the world in general calms, and I can be reasonable about it. *g* The other interesting discussions going on over there [I love that list *g*] are about fanfic of fanfic, or playing in another ficcer's sandbox [I haven't read the whole thread], litfic v. visual-media fic [again, I haven't read the whole thread] and coding of stories. Since I haven't read the threads relating to the first two, I'm not quite ready to discuss them, but on the whole coding thing... I won't read a story that's coded Logan/Jean. If it's not coded that way, and it's a big action-adventurey thing that I might enjoy, and I start it, as soon as I hit the L/J bits, that's it, I delete it. I can't help it, there. I won't read a story that's coded with characters I don't know, unless I trust the author. I tend *not* to read incest fic, though I've made exceptions and not regretted it, again, when I trust an author. I also tend to shy away from rapefic, because too much of it involves Character A being raped and then either 1. falling in love with said rapist or 2. being made "all better" by a nice shag with his/her character of choice. And that makes me so angry I can barely speak. I wrote a rapefic [The Long Hard Road Out of Hell], didn't code it thusly, and didn't get flamed for it. In fact, I got a couple of emails from people who had unfortunately had experience with rape and told me I'd handled it well, for which I was grateful. Needless to say, there was no sex in that story at all, nor even any real romance, though there were some disturbing sexual overtures made by Rogue, and they were supposed to be disturbing. As for coding myself, I will code for character death, and always for pairing. And if it involves more than one pairing, I list 'em all. There's the always-popular L/R/S/J code, which, depending on who the author is, you can always count on it to end either L/R or L/J or R/S. If Logan and Rogue end up together, even though there are other liaisons along the way, I probably just put L/R, because that's how it'll end up. However, in the example which spawned the whole thing, apparently someone coded something wherein Character A was in love with Character C, but married [or with, anyway] Character B, and the story was coded A/B instead of A/C, or A/B, A/C. What does that mean in terms of characters I know? Um, let's say Rogue is married to Remy but in love with Logan. She and Logan have an affair - or she just yearns for him tragically *g* - but she ends up staying with Remy. I'd code that Logan/Rogue, personally, or actually, L/R, R/G [G=Gambit=Remy, fyi, just like O=Ororo=Storm]. I always code for slash, as well, because some people *really* don't like it. Hell, some people will flame you anyway, even after you've warned them a million times that it's about two guys fucking. I hate those people. Stupid gits. If it's got a big old "SLASH" label on it, and you don't like m/m or f/f, don't read it! Christ, how hard is that? Hit delete. That's what it's there for. And I warn if something is atypically angsty or dark for me. Why? Because I don't want to hear about it. If a story is good, I don't think knowing in advance that someone's going to die or something lessens its impact. And when I was a newbie, I was told, "Always code for character death." So I do. I'm not a rebel. I'm really not. And I really don't want to get hate mail from people cursing me out for killing their favorite character and not warning them. Of course, I never warn *which* character is going to die. I didn't warn anyone about the miscarriage fic, either. Hmm... I guess I'm not really consistent, which doesn't surprise me. I probably need to think through a more coherent position on this topic. I mean, I agree that books in bookstores aren't rated or coded, and that the ratings on fic aren't keeping anyone underage from reading etc. and that people should trust an author to take them for a ride. But... You knew there was a but... Have you *seen* some of the fic out there?? I want to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff fairly easily, and my fic reading time is now limited, unfortunately, so I don't want to have that precious time taken up by a story that turns out not to be something I'm interested in. Purposesly miscoding is also a really horrid idea, and a good way to piss me off (even more). Of course, I'm not going to flame anyone about any of this stuff (or any of the hundreds of other things that piss me off). I'm just going to make a mental note of your name and never, ever read your work again. And to top off this great big mess of a day, AT&T webmail is all screwy. Technology hates me. And the feeling is mutual. Which "Natural Wonder" are you? Heh. If so, I'm a tsunami right now, looking to wreak havoc on the world. ~victoria [current mood: irked] [current music: All the Young Dudes - Mott the Hoople] [current mood: ] [current music: ] [random quote: ] ~*~ 2002-02-28 - 11:48 a.m. an odd dichotomy in readership On the friends tip - thanks to those who sent advice. I'll probably end up adding everyone I read regularly to the LJ, even if they don't know me, because, well, it's all about me and what's convenient for me. *g* If you don't want to be associated with the Notorious V.I.C. <*snerk*>, drop me a note and I'll cut you loose. If you don't want to add me, don't. It's not a popularity contest, and I won't feel rejected. I was just thinking about this, sort of, and I'm willing to bet there's a split between those who are interested in reading my diary, and those who are interested in reading my fic. Yeah, there are probably a few who enjoy both [you poor souls], and look at this as an opportunity to get to know me a little better, much as I read other people's journals for the same reason. But I think, having perused the stats, that there are people who read the diary who would probably never go read any of my fic. The reason this came up was that, once again, LJ was confounding me with which website I should list.... Muse's Fool *is* my website, after all, and you can get here from there. Anyhow, the thing is, what I really mean... and now I'm quoting Elton John lyrics in discussion. Sorry. My point, and I did have one, is that the "blog community" as it were, at least in the circles I'm currently running in, is more interested in the meta aspects of fic - the fandom stuff - and most people who read fic probably aren't *that* interested in that aspect of it, so they're probably going to click over here once in a while from my site and see if I've got anything of interest to say. If they catch me on a bad day [or a good day, depending on your definitions *g*], they might get a rant or a snip of new fic. Other days, just quizzes and nonsensical stuff about fictional boyfriends and pure pop gems. There was this article I picked up from Teague's blog about the effect of blogging on the internet and communication in general: Blog This by Henry Jenkins. Interesting, interesting stuff. Media *should* be interactive, and I mean that in all senses, not just in the "You choose between two focus-group tested endings for the Choose Your Own Adventure Movie" way. I mean, we're not children. When giving kids a choice, it's best to present them with the options that you yourself are okay with - as an example, if I had a kid, and I wanted to paint her room, I'd offer her the choice of colors, after I'd already removed the pink and the yellow, since, growing up, I chose pink and then yellow, and regretted both as I grew older and can no longer look at either without yakking. So I'd say, "here honey, you've got light blue, mint green and lavendar. Choose one." That's what most interactive media seems to do these days - forces us to make preapproved choices, when true interactivity would mean we could choose anything, anytime. Which is what's so great about the internet - that's almost exactly what you have. Because if you can't find what you're looking for, you can make it yourself, online. And I've verged wildly from my point. Which was that I wonder what the crossover is between people who read the diary and read the fic. I'd guess that more people who are interested in the fic would read the diary than vice versa. I mean, I know there are some people out there who wouldn't touch my fic with a ten foot pole, for *whatever* reasons, but who drop in here to read my various ramblings. Ah, maybe I didn't have a point after all. *g* In other news, real life is kind of kicking my ass lately. I almost didn't get out of bed this morning, but I forced myself eventually. Was an hour and a half late to work, but I called in, so that was okay. I was very tempted to just call in sick, but my better angels won out and I got up. This anxiety is really tiring me out. All I want to do is sleep. Soon the parents will have moved, and I'll have to seriously start looking for a new apt. myself. And that just gets me down. So if you've emailed me recently, or sent me feedback (God bless you for that!), know that I did get it, and I *am* going to get back to you. I'm just trying to avoid dealing with reality lately, and my inbox is kind of overwhelming, so... keeping it a little low key. And I've got Time's Fool open here, and plan to do some work on it today if I have to sweat blood. And I can just hear my old friend Jessica now, quoting Steel Magnolias (a movie I love, btw. Me = hopelessly mainstream, remember? *g*): [Clairee]"That's attractive, Ouisa."[/Clairee] God I love that movie. ~victoria [current mood: lazy yet anxious] [current music: Bad to the Bone - George Thorogood] [current mood: ] [current music: ] [random quote: ] ~*~ previous - next DiaryLand Disclaimer: Reading this diary is not required by law. If you do not like or agree with the contents herein, or find them to be offensive on more than one occasion, please go elsewhere and don't come back. Management is not responsible for any adverse reactions to content within. The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. Again, not a muse, but I like her. She suits the color scheme. The quote is from Sir Philip Sidney. This site is best viewed with IE4+ | 1024x768 | true color | verdana | tables